Talk:Osama bin Laden/Archive 6

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Naming

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Is there is reason why we have this as "Usama Bin Laden" rather than the far more common "Osama Bin Laden"? (Google registers more than 10 times the number of hits with the latter spelling.) I was going to just move it, but I thought maybe I should ask first. --Zundark

The FBI has it "Usama." And yes, "Osama bin Laden" (or "Bin," capped) is far more common. I have not moved it b/c I didn't want to start another silly debate that distracts from writing articles. --KQ

I created the initial entry, and I chose to use the FBI spelling because that's where I got the text for the original article. <>< tbc

Since there are redirects from at least all four (O/U)sama (B/b)in Laden spellings, I think that's enough. --Pinkunicorn

Fair enough. It's all an approximation anyway.  :-)

So, feel free to move it. --LMS

There IS an official standard for translation from the arab alphabet to the latin I believe, at least there is such a standard for cyrillic. That should resolve these issues once and for all, if anyone can find it.

I think there are several such standards, or conventions. That's the problem.

Doesn't Unicode have Arabic? we could use that =) Kwantus (Dated September 12, 2003)

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Continuing discussion

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There could be a whole article called U.S. supports gone terribly wrong or something....In the Iraq-Iran war Hussein was the good guy, backed by Washington....--AN (yes, this has not much to do with this, erase it later.....)

(re no it isn't/yes it is twixt VeryVerily and I) Ah, I see this has already come up. It should be common knowledge, but isn't. There's one of the Real ongoing conspiracies: The media aren't telling you the Really Important Stuff. (It's not watertight - Frontline mentioned the US-OBL connexions a couple times...and there was the great leak connecting Bush and Hinckley...but the dispersal kept well below that "critical mass" level.) (<insert disparaging remarks about American/Candian Idle>) To VV: I don't have to write up this "conspiracy theory;" it's better-established fact than, say, the existence of the 19 hijackers.Kwantus 04:47, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Ok, I'm not reverting again for now to prevent open war, but the problem should be obvious. Heph dismissively claims "common knowledge", but then Kw says it should be but isn't. That alone should raise a red flag. Yes, I see this has already been discussed here, and some people say the correct thing-- the US did help the Afghan Muj drive out the Soviets, but this is a far cry from "sponsoring" bin Laden, who was one of many non-Afghan Arabs who drifted in to help in the name of jihad. Maybe you the think the CIA did maintain personal ties to bin Laden, but they deny it, and you can't possibly believe it is NPOV to say "The US gov't says xxx, but they're lying." If you care at all about objectivity rather than blind anti-Americanism, "US-sponsored" should go. VeryVerily 06:10, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Uncommon in America, well known elsewhere

I should have said not common knowledge in the US. It's much better known and accepted by the rest of the world. And yes, it should raise a redflag -- but about the US media, not this article. I can't remember offhand if OBL was in the direct pay of the CIA -- but the money changed very few hands in between, and I'm satisfied "US sponsored during the Soviet-Afghan war" is accurate. (I'm looking for evi) you can't possibly believe it's NPOV I can possibly believe it because the US gov't has been proven to be liars in the past and particularly about 9/11. (An easy example: the frantic claims they hadn't thought of aircraft being used as missiles despite a plan for that very thing put out a few months before.) Do you expect the US gov't is going to leap to officially admit OBL is somewhat their own creation? Have they leapt to admit that for Saddam, Pinochet, Duvalier, Marcos, Hitler? No. But the paper trails show that it's so. My antiamericanism (mostly anti-us-gov't-ism) is not "blind." Get a grip. Governments do bad things like lie, that's why we're supposed to prefer democracies over dictatorships because theoretically we can give the evildoers the boot. A government with the most powerful military on a planet on the downside of oil production and a toast economy have certain plausible motives which cannot be dismissed merely because of what they like to pretend themselves to be.

Sometimes the truth is not pleasant. (Do you think I like living in fear of W? Do you think I like this Nazi Germany v2.0? I don't believe it because it's fun. I beleieve it because it's substantiated and "US is the good guys" is not.) If we stick to only thoroughly noncontroversial stuff about OBL, all we'll have is CNN's "Experts agree: OBL dead or alive" Kwantus 16:40, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Theories v. Neutral point of view

I'm not interested in your theories; this is about neutrality, not what you think. Yes, we should stick to the noncontroversial, boring or not. I'm "satisfied" OBL is responsible for 9/11, but the article says merely that he has been "named" by the US as the "prime suspect". I accept this unassuming description in the interests of neutrality. Similarly, alleging CIA-OBL ties is obviously controversial at the least and hence inappropriate. (As for Nazi 2.0-- Sheesh!-- Godwin's law rears its head already.) -- VeryVerily 17:54, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Evidence please, says Kwantus

What's the evidence under your "satisfaction"? Does it run deeper than "my gummint tole me so"? (My evidence was in the article even before I got here, and more besides.) They've never even changed the list of alleged hiijackers although six or eight of them are still alive (or were on 9/12) and received official apologies. (And even if OBL did' "mastermind" it, I want good evidence he's a real black sheep of the bin Laden family so the longstanding documented business relations between the Bushes and the bin Ladens can be ignored.) As for Nazi 2.0 -- trace the US support for the Nazis (which began, granted, as mostly as US corporate support--Genral Motors-DuPont, Ford, IBM, Stadard Oil) through the backing against the Russians after the Petersburg(?) rout, through project Paperclip and its ilk (which is sufficiently well-known Tom Lehrer was singing about a piece of it 40 years ago). Even ignoring the direct Nazi roots in portions of federal establishments, W's course has been very similar to Adoph's. Certainly Hitler more closely resembles Bush than Hussein.[1] "Sheesh"? Throw away the preconceptions and learn some history. -- Kwantus 20:22, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Be careful about making allegations - Graft

As usual we can do better by being careful in statements about what we're alleging. In what manner did the CIA sponsor bin Laden? Direct funds paid to BL? Funds paid to the ISI which were then paid to BL? Funds paid to the ISI which were used as part of a general recruitment campaign to Mulsim radicals that resulted in fighters flocking to bin Laden's side? Who makes these allegations and what is their supporting evidence? Graft 18:11, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Agreed -- this needs more-explicit citation. If I weren't so deep in knot polynomials I'd do it right now.Kwantus 20:22, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

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ISI known to fund Al-Qaida, and the mujahideen. This was even confirmed by the CFR, Council on Foreign Relations, the slop bucket from where our heads of state regularly emerge.

Funds were paid to ISI (our proxy, Paki Intelligence head is approved by CIA). Widely confirmed that Paki and ISI was "our partner" before 9-11, and especially confirmed after 9-11, by Bush admin/Porter Goss.

Some funds to ISI were paid directly by CIA, some were paid by our friends the Saudis to ISI, presumably on behalf of CIA since it was our operation, via back-channels such as covert operatives, criminals, drug dealers, arms dealers. Saeed Sheikh was highly educated Londoner, convicted of murder of Pearl, tied to such funding manuevers.

Similar to Iran-Contra-Cocaine, which was not "proven" until a plane crashed with a live witness Hasenfuss aboard --- and CIA still denied it!

Other funds reportedly came from protected sales of Afghan heroin. US State Dept. describes Al-Qaeda ally KLA as terrorists, dealing Afghan heroin. Afghani heroin production --- which had dipped in 2000 --- has blossomed (poppy pun?) since CIA and US military took over Afghanistan. There is much info and even bar graphs, some by DEA itself, on many websites, but Prof. Chossudovsky on http://www.globalresearch.ca seems to have compiled the most reliable list, remaining generally 'conservative' about unknowns, but not unwilling to draw some obvious conclusions.

Google "Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed" for info on how this ISI leader wired funds to Atta in Florida in August or Sept. 2001, confirmed by FBI -- though Condi "never heard of it" when she was questioned. Confirmed: He was a guest of our intelligence leaders on the week from Sept 4-13, 2001.

For extremely explicit citations go to http://www.cooperativeresearch.com . I don't have all names and dates memorized, but Paul Thompson cites names and dates, some widely confirmed connections (some even by our FBI), some confirmed by other reliable government's intelligence, plus somewhat more dubious connections --- which typically follow similar patterns or facts of the confirmed ones.

ISI in turn funded Mujahideen warriors -- fair to say ALWAYS on behalf of CIA, given longstanding ties and the nature of those ties -- to support the destabilization effects of Islamic Extremists.

There is SOME question as to whether Osama --- and probably very few of his soldiers, if any --- knew that ISI funds actually come from USA. Odds are OBL does, as there are two reports of OBL getting medical care within the context of US assistance. One was reported by the French (in Le Monde, I think) that the "American Hospital" in Dubai treated OBL, then staff later retracted statements.

Other report about OBL getting medical care in Rawalpindi Pakistan, reported by Dan Rather.

This information is about what CIA calls "Clandestine Operations", which by their very nature and definition, means that commentators must gather data and draw rational conclusions from observable and knowable facts, and less-provable facts.

The Police, Detectives, Courts, Prosecutors, scientists and ordinary human beings use this approach in the real world all the time, and do not wait for Fox or CNN or WSJ to tell them if the sky is in fact blue. Nor must humans necessarily wait for "Classified" facts to be "Declassified" or leaked, 100% of the time, depending on the situation.

{Gary G December 28, 2005 }